Well done Paul, good job. It's not as bad as you think is it? Just a bit heavy lifting the strut up. The worst part of mine was the drop links, I ended up having to cut one end off. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Thanks AJ! Yes, not hard at all, but I think I was pretty lucky with no cutting or even any bashing needed to get things apart. I was very generous with the penetrating fluid for several days in advance, which possibly helped a bit.

(Posted in wrong thread - deleted...)

I'm happy to say both new front struts remained fully inflated all night long, just as they used to, so hopefully normal service is now resumed for me.

It's all washed now, and even the interior mats cleaned for a change!

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

Thankfully the battery replacement topic in the wiki (https://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic43662.html) had beautiful pictures of this random piece of plastic and exactly how it fits in on top of the battery, so I can now declare the job fully completed!

It did the 120 mile run back to London absolutely perfectly this afternoon, no more suspension warnings on the dash. I was live monitoring for the first 2 hours on my IID tool, and the air gallery pressure held very steady unlike on the journey down to Poole, when it was slowly but continually dropping.

I'm sure I'll be carefully checking it every time I walk past it this week in case it goes droopy again, but hopefully everything is sorted now. Thanks to everyone for the advice and comments!

Paul you beat me to it, was just about to post a pic of mine:

Super, many thanks Greg!

I was sure someone would post a picture soon, but then suddenly thought surely someone already has, and a detailed write up of a battery change would be the obvious place to find one - fullfatrr.com does it again

It is an odd set up for what is does...!

Well done sorting the air bags .
. Cheers, Greg
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2011 Vogue SE 4.4 with lots of toys in Stornaway

Final job done this morning.

Until you receive them it's not obvious that the new struts don't come with these little plastic ciips that secure one of the sensor wires that goes round each strut. You're pretty much guaranteed to snap the existing ones off when trying to extract them, and so I ordered up some new ones this week. Thankfully with an average length arm you can get them located and get the wire secured again without needing to jack the truck up and take the wheels off. If you are replacing struts, worth ordering a couple of these SGK000080 clips at the same time, they are only ~40p each.

Having driven to London and parked up since last Sunday, it's stayed fully inflated all week as it always has done previously, so I think I can now finally declare the job 100% complete. Will have a fun drive round the North Circular tomorrow for some voluntary work to give it the final road test!

Great news Paul! have you noticed any difference in ride quality since changing the struts out of interest?

Precisely the same thing happened to a bunch of us recently (about 6 or 7 on here) - all happened when the weather got colder.

Front left seems to go then when the hole gets bigger the whole car drops.

Yes, I don't know if the cold weather was just the last straw for the rubber of the air spring and made it less flexible or something and thus more prone to getting a leak, or it just reached it's expiry age. The rubber on the expansion/contraction area certainly looked it's age, and presumably some of the crazing/cracking developed into a minor hole, which grew gradually bigger. Given both struts seemed to be the originals, so around 8.5-9 years old, I don't think that's a bad life for a rubber spring underneath a car of this weight and power.

WB - I must admit I've only driven it from Poole to London mainly on the M3, and haven't since used it this week. Tomorrow will be trekking round the North Circular in it, but not sure that is much of a handling test, more like a braking challenge! From the initial drive I can't say I personally noticed any difference either way, but then again, out of my 17 years driving, 15 of that was in Nineties/Defenders, so I'm still amazed by the ride quality of my L322 every time I get in it! Once I get it out on some country roads though I'll see if there's any noticeable changes and report back.

Ahh cheers guys , was gonna toss it in the boot and forget about it 😂🤣but I see now we’re it goes
It’s weird when I start a topic I get a notification of the first reply then I don’t get anymore, I have notify me ticked but just get 1 notification and that’s it , have I undone something 🤔 1990 3.5 v8 defender
2000 4.6 v8 30th anniversary prins lpg
2004 4.4 v8 vogue prins lpg
2011 4.4 TDV8 Vogue
faultmate extreme
rsw allcoms
Autel 906BT
Gap iiD tool

Lovely looking FFRR  2015 4.4 AB
GSXR 1000 K5
R1 1998

Thanks dolph34 - I do my best, although can't quite compete with Greg's attention to detail on the plastics and other pieces! But I plan to keep it a long time, so try and look after it - some fresh washing/polishing/waxing equipment is gradually arriving in Poole, as we were here when the lockdown was announced and don't overly fancy going back to London at the moment, and I stupidly didn't bring my car pampering kit with me as I often do at weekends...

My Dad has always fancied one as well, especially a 5.0 S/C since I've picked up mine, so we went to look at another one locally a month ago. Pretty expensive at a local independent, and I thought in dreadful condition externally, despite only ~45k miles. It had scratches everywhere, at least two wheel arches dinged and dented on the curve, pock marks all over the rear quarters, rust on the rear arches, completely crazed headlights, scraped bumpers, etc... Dealer reckoned it would all polish out! It was also a different grey (Orkney maybe), which I didn't think had nearly as much depth and fleck as the Stornoway, although maybe that was just the condition this example was in!

That experience has made me even more determined to look after mine .